he was instinctively opposed to the deal because he was born in the Soviet Union. "Having felt that kind of oppression, I would never have wanted to compromise in that direction." His opinion changed, he said, when he talked with Chinese people about it. "They're really proud of what China has accomplished. They feel that as much information as can go into China, the better off it is."

In Google's defense, Larry and Sergey list some key differences between Google and... let's say Microsoft: "We have very open partnerships. We're very careful about being fair with revenue. We're a big supporter of open source."

It's interesting to decide what's more evil: being in conflict with your principles (search results should be unbiased) or making many of your users unhappy (Google is often down)? Google chose the utilitarianism: something is good if it brings happiness to the greatest number of people.